ghost

I can’t honestly say that I’m a big fan of Korean films, and “R-Point,” my most recent foray into Korean cinema is certainly no exception. Almost all of the Korean movies that I have seen seem to be at least half-an-hour too long, have meandering plots, and bizarre tonal shifts that I think end up really hurting them. Even Korean films that I’ve enjoyed like “The Host” and “I Saw the Devil” are no exception, as they both share these flaws.

In "Kuroneko", a woman and her daughter-in-law are raped and murdered by a roving band of samurai. After their death the woman and her daughter-in-law swear their loyalty to the devil in order for them to be able to return to the world as cat-like ghosts and kill every samurai they possibly can. They then lure unsuspecting samurai to their home, deep in a bamboo forest, where the daughter-in-law proceeds to get the samurai drunk and seduce them. When the samurai are at their most vulnerable the mother and daughter-in-law reveal their true forms and kill them.

Kenji Mizoguchi has frequently been grouped alongside Kurosawa and Ozu as one of Japanese cinema’s premiere auteurs. His films are often noted for their eloquent long-take tracking shots, social realist subject matters and their sincere yet brutally honest portrayals of women and the socio-cultural forces of repression that they encounter. Though Mizoguchi had a long career making studio silent films many film critics regard the films he made in the 1950s as his paramount achievements.